More Than Pride On Line for Clemson in ACC Tournament

The Clemson Baseball app is on the point of turning in its worst time in over six decades.

The Tigers start the ACC Tournament sitting two games under .500 at 24-26 and the last time Clemson ended a season with a losing record was 1957, the season before Bill Wilhelm took over as head trainer.

Following being swept at home by Duke on the weekend, Monte Lee's team heads to Charlotte on a four-game losing streak. The Tigers ended up the regular season by losing eight of their final ten games.

"Really difficult way to finish the regular season," Lee said on Saturday. "Just bothersome to be as close as we've been around many, many times this season to come up short. But just got to prepare for the ACC tournament today."

Clemson came to the last series of the regular season with their postseason hopes very much alive, but after being swept by the Blue Devils, will now need a deep run this weekend to reestablish any hope of making it into a regional.

The ACC Baseball Championship will feature a pool-play format, resulting in a four-team, single-elimination bracket to determine the league champion. Each group in the four pools will play 1 game against each of the other two opponents in its own pool.

The four teams with the best documents within their respective pools will advance to Saturday's semifinals, with the winners playing Sunday in the ACC Championship Game. When the teams are tied at the conclusion of pool play, then the team with the highest seed in the various pool will progress.

The Tigers are set to face the Cardinals in 11 a.m. on Tuesday along with the Yellow Jackets in p.m. on Wednesday.

LHP Keyshawn Askew will get the start for Clemson from Louisville, a team the Tigers swept at home during the regular season. RHP Caleb Corbett will get the nod to the Cardinals.

The team will needs wins in every single game to not only potentially avoid finishing the season with a losing record but to also keep any hope of making the postseason alive. The last time that the program failed to turn it into a regional was 2008 and this could mark just the second time since 1986 the Tigers failed to make it in to postseason play.

For Clemson to have some success this week, Lee says that his team will need to be better at getting those timely hits, something that the team has fought with much of the season. The head trainer would also want to see that his bullpen be more powerful than it has been over the last few weeks of the season.

"I believe we have got to be greater at the back half of this game," Lee said. "I think we haven't been able to complete games out when it comes to pitching and defense. Need to become a little bit better there. And when we get chances to score with runners on base, perhaps somewhat better with runners in scoring position."

Regional Sports Networks from throughout the convention footprint and throughout the nation will carry all 12 matches on Tuesday through Friday. All games are also available on the ACC Network Extra.